The Painted Word
by Tom Wolfe
“All of them, artists and theorists, were talking as if their conscious aim was to create a totally immediate art, lucid, stripped of all the dreadful baggage of history, an art fully revealed, honest, as honest as the flat-out integral picture plane.” ― Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word
If you abjure the chic and dream of a realist approach to art this may be your book. Written by novelist and essayist Tom Wolfe, this is an extended essay on the current state of art (circa 1975). In it he extends his social critique into the world of art with not surprising results. Those results are both witty and amusing. More importantly they are thought-provoking while raising the skeptical bar for art criticism.
Modern art has morphed into postmodernism and beyond since this book was written, but his commentary has not lost its bite. Moreover, there may be good modern art, but there certainly is a lot of bad modern art to sort through before you find it. This short introduction is one good place to find out where and how to look for it.
4 comments:
Hi James, As I understand Monet in his later years experimented with modern art but with Monet anything he does has to be taken very seriously because he is a genius which everyone can see in his earlier more realistic paintings. Maybe that's something to consider. Can some of the modern artists do beautiful realistic paintings as well? If they can then their modern stuff needs to be respected but if they can't and their modern stuff leaves one puzzled as to why its art, then you have to wonder. Maybe in some cases the wool is being pulled over our eyes.
Sadly, my knowledge of art is sketchy at best. I need to gain a better understanding of older movements before exploring the modern and postmodern stuff. With that, I find musings about aesthetics to be fascinating.
Kathy,
Thanks for your excellent observation. I share your puzzlement over much of modern art. I think Tom Wolfe does also.
Brian,
The musings of Tom Wolfe are indeed fascinating. Thanks for your comment.
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